0 
0 
0 


'^ 


AT    LOS  ANGELES 


THE  TRUTH  ABOUT  HOMER. 


WITH    SOME    REMARKS    ON    PROFESSOR    JEBB'S 
"  IXTRODUCTIOX    TO    HOMER." 


T))v  yap    doiSi)v  juaWov    fTTKcXfioud'   (tvPpojiroi 
^Tig  UKovoVTtaaL  NEQTATH    dfi(pnTi\i]Tai. 

Od.  i.  351. 


BY   F.   A.   PALEY,   M.A.,   LL.D., 

EDITOR   OF   THE    ''  ILIAD,"    HESIOD,   THE   GREEK   TRAGEDIES,    &C.,    &C. 


LONDON : 

F.    NOROATE,    7,    KING    STREET,    COVENT   GARDEN, 

AND   THE   "CAMBRIDGE  CHRONICLE"    OFFICE,    9,    MARKET  HILL. 


Price,  Is. 


1887. 


'.\''.':'  :    '''':'':  '''  ■•'  '■ 


•     •  • •  •« 

•  •  '    •     •  •       .   • 


05 


CD 


THE   TRUTH   ABOUT   HOMER. 


a: 

^         Professor  Jobb,  with  the  applause  of  admiring  Reviewers,  has 
CC  come  forward,  not  for  the  first  time,  in  his  "  Introduction  to  Homer," 
J  as  an  advocate  of  that  view  respecting  the  very  early  date  of  our  tAvo 
great  Epics  which  appears  to  bo  accepted  genBrally  in  this  country, 
as  well  as  by  a  numerous  school  in  Germany.     They  agree  in  believing 
that  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  have  come  down  to  us  (more  or  less 
nearly  in  their  integrity)  from  B.C.  SOO  or  S 50,  if  not  even  from  yet 
1^  earlier  times.     Of  com'se  they  rely,   generally,   (1)   on    the   archaic 
^  character  of  the  poems,   (2)  the  ancient  forms  of  the  inflexions,   (3) 
'~  the  notices  of  domestic  life  <ind  customs,  (4)  the  statement  of  Hero- 
dotus, recording  perhaps  the  tradition  of  his  age,  that    "  Homer  " 
lived  four  centuries  before  his  own  time.     And  that  the  matter  of  the 
-i  poems  is  very  old, — as  is  the  matter  of  the  Argonautics  of  ApoUonius 
and  of  the  "  Post-homerica  "  of  Q.  Smj'ruaeus. — none  will  care  to 
deny.     The  form,  date,  and  authorship  of  the  Epics  as  we  now  have 
them  is  the  only  question  in  dispute. 

Professor  Jebb  takes  no  notice  of  the  fact,  so  often  indicated  in 

ymy  writings  on  this  subject,  that  we  cannot  trace  the  existence  of 

j]the3e  poems,  beyond  the  occasional,  but  rare,  reference  to  some  few 

i^'  episodes  contained  in  them,  in  the  writings  of  Pindar  and  the  Tragic 

tPoets  ;    whUe  we  can  show  quite  conclusively,  that  they  uniformly 

^followed  that  vefy  different  version  of  the  "  Tale  of  Troy  "  which  wo 

.now  call  "  Cyclic."     Again  and  agaid  I  halro  pointed  out  that  this  is  a 

J^iituf  flaw  in  the  claim  to  the  descent  of  "'our  Homer"  from  so  remoto 

""an  antiquity  1  Professor  Jobb  observes  a  judicious  silence  on  this  difli- 

culty ;  ho  is  too  good  a  scholar,  I  believe,  to  have  recourse  to  the  very 

absurd  theory,  that  the  great  poets  of  the  Porielean  age,  and  indeed 

up  to  Plato's  time,  or  about  li.C.  400,  J,-it(>7i'iiif/li/  (tnd  (Uliheruthj  took 

their  thonie.<;  from  later,  inferior,  and  supplementary  epics  (i.e.  believed 

by  themselves  to  be  such),  because  they  hesitated  to  trespass  on  tho 

genuine  works  of  the  "Divine  Hoiiier."     1  am  afraid  therefore  thnt 

he  is  maintaining  a  popuhu-,  but  untenable,  jiosilion  by  a  anpjirmaio 

Vcri,  siniiJy  because  the  plain  ytutement  of  tlio  truth  about    "  Uomef 


2.'54(i9() 


and  the  Cyclic  Poets"  is  at  variance  with  the  theory  which  he 
advocates.  Of  course,  I  am  not  charging  a  distinguished  scholar, 
and  one  Avho  for  very  many  years  has  been  my  friend,  with  deliberate 
unfuiruess,  but  with  a  literary  one-sidedness  which  is  reluctant  to 
put  forward  what  is  to  be  said  on  the  opposite  side,  or  an  obliquity  of 
vision  which  sees  things  only  under  one  aspect.  Without  doubt,  this 
is  a  kind  of  unfairness  ;  yet  people  easily  persuade  themselves  that 
they  are  not  bound  to  notice  the  arguments  of  opponents,  or  to 
weaken  a  cause  by  showing  what  has  been  pleaded  against  it. 

Would  it  not  have  been  fair  and  reasonable  to  point  out,  accom- 
panjdng  it  with  any  explanation  in  his  power,  the  fact  (to  take  one 
typical  example),  that  Aeschylus  composed  that  noble  play  the 
Ayamemnon  from  an  ejii/re/?/ different  "Homer,"  and  that  the  sacrifice 
of  Iphigenia,  the  joyful  reception  of  Helen  at  Troy,  the  reluctance  of 
Odysseus  to  join  the  expedition,  the  burning  of  Ilium,  the  storm 
which  dispersed  the  fleet  on  its  return,  are  all  "Cyclic"  (so-called) 
and  "  non-Homeric"  ?  Is  any  plausible  explanation  to  be  found  for 
his  ignoring  the  "  Iliad,"  if  Aeschylus  had  and  knew  the  very  poems 
which  Mr.  Jebb  assigns  to  B.C.,  850  y  Or  shall  we  rest  content  to  be 
told,  that  the  story  of  the  murder  of  Agamemnon  proves  that  he 
must  at  least  have  had  the  Odyssey?  Compare  then  Ag.  11(J0, 
1417,  with  Pind.,  Pyth.  xi.,  20 — 3.  There  are  good  grounds  for 
concluding  that  the  reference  to  "  Scylla"  (1233)  like  that  to  Phineus 
(Eum.  50)  pei-tained  to  the  Argonautics. 

The  fact  remains,  conspicuous  and  unanswerable,  and  Prof.  Jebb 
either  knows  it  or  ought  to  know  it,  that  it  is  utterly  impcssible,  from 
Pindar  or  any  of  the  very  numerous  dramas  or  their  titles  (not  less  than 
100)  liriirin;/  on  tlie  Troica,  to  prove  the  existence  of  the  Iliad  or  the 
Odyssey  till  the  time  of  Pluto,  who  first  systematically  quotes  them. 

The  Tragics  followed  the  older  and  more  authentic  epics  which 
were  known  to  them  from  oral  recitation.  Plato  used  a  literary 
written  epitome  or  "  rednction  "  of  the  two  poems,  constructed  each 
round  a  central  figure,  a  diamatic  Protagonistes,  in  an  age  of  rhetoric, 
high  culture,  sophistic  teachings  of  the  rights  and  duties  of  humanity. 
Homer  thus  became,  instead  of  a  repertory  of  savagery  and  revenge, 
a  code  of  ethical  teaching  worthy  of  Socrates  and  of  advanced  philo- 
sophy. 

We  know  so  very  little  about  the  transition  from  oral  to 
written  poetry  that  we  have  no  means  of  discovering  how,  or 
by    whom,    the    final    "redaction"     of    the    Platonic    Homer   was 


effected.  "^iMiat  share  in  it  was  taken  by  Antimaclius  or  some 
other  able  poet  or  "editor"  who  could  cany  out  his  version  of 
the  Troics  on  a  uniform  plan,  we  cannot  say,  and  our  opponents, 
the  advocates  of  the  B.C.  850  theory,  have  no  right  to  call  on 
us  for  explicit  information.  Aristotle  followed  Plato  in  his  ac- 
ceptance of  these  poems  in  their  new  and  highly  elaborated  form,  as 
the  genuine  "Homer."  They  contained  amply  enough  of  the  old 
stories  about  Nestor,  Agamemnon,  Diomede,  Hector,  Achilles  and 
Patroclus.  &c.,  tfcc,  to  be  readily  identified  with  the  general  descrip- 
tions of  a  barbarous  fighting  age,  and  to  continue  in  their  altered 
aspect,  and  divested  of  much  of  their  savagery,  io  be  regarded  and 
accepted  as  "  Homer."     What  else  could  they  have  been  called  ? 

This  being  so,  the  immense  influence  of  Aiistotle's  authority  led 
the  Alexuiidritie  sc/iohrrs  to  exclude  and  reject  all  that  vast  series  of  ejdscdes 
tvJn'ch  had  formed  the  "Horner^'  of  their  predecessors,  and  to  devise  a 
theoiy  which,  baseless  as  it  appears  to  have  been,  gained  wide 
acceptance,  and  is  still  duly  put  forward  as  the  undoubted  tiaith, 
about  the  poems  of  the  "Cyclus,"  their  titles,  subjects,  and  the 
supposed  names  of  theu*  authors. 

Aristotle  himself,  as  it  seems  to  me,  in  the  "  Poetic,"  writes  in  a 
half-hearted  way  in  his  eulogy  of  the  unity  of  "Homer,"  and  his 
attempt  to  show  why  tragedies  were  not  taken  from  that  source,  but 
rather  from  a  (non-Homeric)  "  Little  Iliad."  He  talks  about  "  eight 
di-amas"  whei-e  I  have  counted  100  as  borrowed  from  the  Trvica. 
Probably,  as  the  "Cyclus"  had  not  been  compiled  in  his  time,  he 
had  no  special  knowledge  of  the  themes  and  the  episodes  of  the  older 
Homer,  which  had  no  place  in  his  Hiad.  To  him  all  that  was  not 
Hiad  or  Odyssey  was  not  "Homeric,"  and  all  that  was  not 
"  Homeric  "  was  assumed  to  be  the  work  of  imitators,  who  had 
taken  upon  themselves  the  task  of  composing  siqyjilemrrds  to  the 
genuine,  original,  and  faithfully  preserved  "Homer"  of  B.C.  850. 
All  that  was  not  due  to  the  genius  of  the  "divine  Homer"  Avaa 
less  than  divine. 

I  say,  and  I  have  said  in  vain  for  some  twenty  years,  that  all 
this  is  nonseiinf.  The  inoposition  is  an  imi)Ossible  one  in  every  way. 
If  we  want  to  know  what  tlie  genuine  old  "  Ilomeries"  are,  we  vnist 
appeal  to  Pindar,  the  Tragics,  and  the  vase-painters.  We  hhall  then 
find  conclusively  tliat  they  IkhI  md  tlio  Platonic  Homer,  and  we  shall 
and  must  thence  dniw  tlie  conchision  that  the  "iirchaisms  "  of  the 
traditional   epic   huiguage   are   no    pruof    of    a    remote    anti(iuity    in 


themselves.  All  Greek  epics,  of  whatever  date,  arc  {sscntially  and  con- 
spicuously "  arcliaistic."  A  considerable  portion  ol'  the  early  legends 
of  Ilium,  and  others  (Achaean)  of  the  house  of  the  Atridae,  current  in 
the  fifth  century  B.C.,  are  known  to  us  2)artly  from  hints  and  "sur- 
vivals "  in  the  tragedies,  partly  from  later  ijrose  mythographcrs.  The 
"  Iliad  "  as  we  have  it  is  but  a  di'op  in  the  vast  ocean  of  "  Homeric  " 
lore  ;  and  it  is  an  extraordinary  delusion  to  believe  that  a  mere  scrap, 
so  to  call  it,  of  the  siege  of  Priam's  city  ever  Avas  the  central  and 
primary  exponent  of  the  Greek  expedition  against  Troy  I  Tantalus, 
Pelops,  Pleisthenes,  Tliyestes,  and  their  belongings,  were  as  familiar 
as  the  myths  about  the  capture  of  Ilium  by  Ht  rcules  and  Telamon, 
the  advent  of  the  Amazons  (II.  iii.,  189),  the  fraud  of  Laomcdon,  the 
birth  of  Paris,  the  love  of  Helen,  the  stories  about  Tros  and  Gany- 
mede, Pcleus  and  Thetis,  Achilles  in  Chiron's  cave  and  at  Scp-os,  &c. 
How  could  all  this  evtr  Lave  been  tvritft'ti  matter  ?  And  if  it  was  not, 
why  forsooth,  should  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  have  been  written 
either  ? 

This  theorj' of  "  non-Homeric  "  poetry, — a  theory  which  is  not 
earlier  than  the  Alexandrine  critics — is  the  rock  on  which  all 
sound  and  reasonable  views  about  Homer  have  been  wrecked.*  Thus 
writes  Mr.  Leaf  (Introduction  to  the  Iliad,  p  xxiv) ;  "  The  Iliad  and 
Odyssey  were  the  only  great  poetical  creations  of  the  prehistoric  and 
precyclic  age  of  Greece*" 

Now  "  Iliad  "  merely  means  a  collection  of  poems  about  Ilium,  as 
the  "Thebaid"  included  those  about  Thebes.  The  "Little  Iliad" 
referred  to  by  Aristotle  presupposes  a  "  Great  Iliad"  already  usurping 
the  throne  and  the  sceptre.  Herodotus  once  (ii.,  116)  mentions  "  Iliad  " 
by  name  ;  and  the  title,  utteiiy  inappropriate  as  it  is  to  our  poem, 
which  turns  on  the  pivot  of  the  quarrel  of  Achilles,  carried  with  it 
the  "glamour  of  antiquity."  The  old  Troica  (since  a  siege  must 
have  a  cause,  as  well  as  a  beginning  and  an  end)  appear  to  have  been 
arranged  in  a  kind  of  chronological  series,  which  was  recited  by  the 
rhapsodists  tS  vTcofioXfjg,  i.e.  in  a  certain  law  of  sequence  or  succession. t 

*  Certain  parts  were,  no  doubt,  as  we  know  from  Herodotus  and  Plato,  re- 
jected by  earlier  critics  as  'a7ro0£ra  Itttj.  But  that  circumstance  does  not  affect 
the  main  question,  what  was  the  Homer  of  the  age  of  Pericles  ? 

t  The  term  is  rightly  so  interpreted  by  M.  Scngebnsch.  Sote.  Dissert.  Pos- 
terior, p.  108,  but  wrongly  explained  by  Prof.  Jebb  (after  Grote),  either  '-from 
an  authorized  text,"  or,  "  with  prompting"  (p.  77,  note^  This  shows  how  a 
mind  can  be  influenced  by  a  preconceived  idea  about  early  MSS.  of  Homer. 


There  is  no  piouf  at  all  that  the  ancient  solar  niytli  of  Athillos, 
and  his  gloritioatiou  at  the  pi-ayer  of  Thetis  (Piud.  01.  ii.,  71*) 
formed  a  primitive  "  Aehilleid."  which  is  the  surmise  of  Mr.  Grote, 
and  one  that  has  found  favour  with  many  recent  scholars.  Pindar 
mentions  Axi^fi;,  no  less  than  eleven  times,  but  only  as  a  fighting 
man.  He  lends  no  support  whatever  to  this  theory  of  "  a  primitivo 
Aehilleid."  No  doubt,  we  shall  be  reminded  that  "  tin'  Iliad  '"  was 
many  centuries  older  than  Pindar. 

It  is  worthy  of  notice,  that  the  more  popular  parts  of  the  "Talc 
of  Ti-oy,"  as  far  as  we  can  judge  from  tlie  tragedies,  were  those  sub- 
sequent to  the  fall  of  Troy  and  the  death  of  Achilles,  and  connecltMl 
Avith  the  return  of  the  heroes.  The  murder  of  Neoptolemus  at  Deljdii, 
through  the  intrigues  of  Orestes  (the  subject  of  the  Andromache  and 
of  tlio  reference  in  Pind.  Xem.  vai.),  the  fate  of  Electra  and  Orestes 
after  the  miu-der  of  Agamemnon,  the  sacrifice  of  Polyxeiui  and  the 
doings  and  sayings  of  Ajax,  Menelaus,  and  Odysseus, — such  were 
sj^ecially  favourite  topics  of  the  drama.  This  would  not  have  been 
the  case  if  the  ei)ic  authority  for  the  stories  had  been  then,  as  in  the 
Alexandi-ine  times,  regarded  as  secondary  and  inferior.  I  think  this 
is  a  consideration  of  weight;  yet  no  writer  on  "  Homer"  ever  even 
alludes  to  it.  The  legends  of  the  house  of  Atreus  seem  to  have  been 
mainly  cuiTent  in  Attica ;  a  later  compilation  in  the  new  Ionic 
natiu-ally  embodied  a  larger  proportitm  of  the  Asiatic  legends. 

It  is  no  pleasure  to  me,  and  assuredly  I  have  not  hitherto  had 
the  least  encouragement,  to  parade  my  own  private  convictions  about 
the  comparatively  recent  date  of  "  our  Homer,"  against  the  over- 
whelming and  combined  weight  of  popular  opinion,  strong  educa- 
tional prejudice,  absolute  ignorance  on  the  part  of  general  readers  as 
to  the  ix'al  facts  of  the  case,  and  above  all,  against  that  clinging  to 
Orthdduxy  which  makes  change  of  conviction,  even  in  reasonable  men, 
almost  impossible  I  Nevertheless,  I  feel  impelled  l)y  a  natural  hive  of 
truth,  to  scatter  some  seeds  which  may  some  day  bear  fruit  in  slirewd, 
impartial,  independent,  and  inquiring  minds.  For  I  beli(;V(.'  tliis  is  u 
really  great  and  important  liti'raiy  (piesfi(jn,  anil  lliat  I  am  doing  good 
service  by  again  caUing  attention  to  it. 

It  so  happens  that,  having  edited  repeateilly  "//  the  extant 
tragedies  and  the  Iliad,  as  well  as  translated  lindai-,  and  liavii'g 
made  a  special  study  for  many  years  of  the  subject  matter  of  thcHU 
poems.  :is  well  us  of  the  painlings  on  tlie  aneieul  vases  (which  arn 
acknowledged  to  be  "  nun-Humeric  "),  and  of  thai  ivperlory  of  Tnnjio 


8 

subjects,  the  "  Post-TTomerica"  of  Qmntus  Bmyrnaeus,  I  am  fairly 
well  qualified  to  give  an  opinion  as  to  which  was  and  which  was  not 
the  "  Homei" "  of  antiquity.  It  is  in  this  respect  that  I  greatly  miss 
either  the  candour  or  the  knowledge  of  those  who  continue  to  advocate 
the  more  popiilar  views.  I  cannot  find  that  they  possess  any  special 
acquaintance  with  the  themes  of  the  Tragics  ;  and  I  feel  quite  sure 
that  Mr.  Grote  did  not,  whose  course  of  reading  and  thought  had 
evidently  never  been  turned  in  that  direction. 

With  regard  to  the  Odyssey,  I  am  satisfied  that  it  is  largely  made 
tip  from  myths  and  legends,  vrigiiiaUy  sola?',  associated  with  the  ad- 
ventures of  Odysseus  in  his  return  to  his  western  home,  and  from  the 
Argonautics  which  we  know  that  Pindar  and  the  Tragics  possessed  ! 
indeed,  they  are  distinctly  quoted  and  referred  to  in  Od.  xii,  70. 
From  a  common  source,  it  is  evident,  and  not  by  any  process  of 
direct  plagiarism,  the  names  and  stories  about  Alcinous  and  his  queen 
Arete,  Scylla,  and  her  mother  Krataeis,  Charybdis,  the  sun-cows,  Circe 
(called  Xlaii),  moon-goddess).  Calypso,  the  clashing  rocks  [irXayKTal), 
JEolus,  King  Echetus,  &c.,  occur  both  in  the  Odyssey  and  in  the 
Argonautics  of  AppoUonius.  The  Odyssey  therefore  is  a  composite 
poem,  and  though  its  component  parts  are  doubtless  old,  there  are 
abundant  reasons  for  concluding  that  it  cannot,  in  its  present  form, 
claim  anything  like  the  antiquity  attributed  to  it  by  Professor  Jebb, 
still  less,  be  regarded  as  an  original  poem. 

Still  there  seems  a  desperate  effort  not  to  give  up  the  ' '  Bible  of 
the  Greeks,"  and  not  to  surrender  its  "historic"  character  as  in- 
dicating the  manners  and  customs,  the  arts,  the  armoui-,  and  the 
military  ojaerations  in  the  remote  period  of  B.C.  850.  On  this  subject 
I  think  much  misconception  prevails,  due  in  part  to  the  natural  pre- 
judice on  the  side  of  a  great  antiquity.  I  am  quite  content  with  the 
excellence  of  the  poems  as  we  have  them,  and  the  indications  of  a 
cultured  and  civilised  age  which  they  present,  without  caring  for 
mere  sentiment  of  this  land.  But  I  think  I  have  reason  to  complain 
of  the  absolute  indifference  and  incredulity  (to  say  nothing  of  the 
ridicule)  with  which  my  conclusions  have  been  received. 

The  least  that  one  who  has  long  given  his  mind  to  laborious  re- 
search can  expect,  is  a  fair  hearing.  It  appears  however  that  of  the 
comparatively  few  who  in  this  country  profess  interest  in  classical 
researches,  there  are  some  who  are  showing  a  tendency  or  even  a  de- 
termination to  combine  as  a  literary  clique,  and  to  stand  together  as 
the  associated  advocates  of  narrow  and  incomplete  views.     They  can 


roly,  it  scorns,  on  a  favourable  notice  from  the  writers  and  critics  of 
certain  periodicals,  so  that  whatever  one  of  them  puts  forward  ia 
secure  of  praise  from  a  friendly  pen.  This  is  bad  ;  but  yet  worse  is 
the  marked  unfairness  with  which  the  researches  of  others  not  in  the 
same,  or  it  may  be  in  an  opposite,  direction,  are  ignored,  or  I  might 
say,  "boycotted."  Such  a  subject  as  solar  lore,  vast  as  is  its  im- 
portance and  direct  its  bearing  on  the  true  interpretation  of  mytho- 
logy, and  indeed,  of  nmch  that  passes  as  history,  is  treated  with  un- 
disguised contempt.  Thus  Prof.  Jebb  (p.  147)  calls  the  treatment  of 
the  siege  of  Troy  as  merely  a  solar  myth,  "  fantastic."  The  bearing 
of  this  party  towards  the  "Homeric  question"  is  completely  one- 
sided. They  will  not  listen  to  (apparently,  they  will  not  even  read) 
any  evidence  that  makes  against  the  particular  view  which  they  have 
taken  into  their  patronage.  I  know  nothing  more  discreditable  in  the 
conduct  of  a  leading  Review  than  the  making  it  the  organ  of  any 
particular  set  of  opinions  on  archaeological  matters,  and.  I  have  felt 
bound  to  speak  plainly  on  the  subject.  Exclusiveness  of  this  kind 
may  bi-ing  a  transient  reputation  to  a  certain  school  of  writers  ;  but 
it  has  to  pay  the  penalty  of  being  considered  by  all  impartial  scholars 
a  deficiency  in  the  knowledge  of  the  age,  and  a  lack  of  truthfulness 
unworthy  of  the  sacred  cause  of  learning. 

An  impartial  student  of  Homer  must  be  struck  (although  this 
strong  point  again  is  persistently  ignored)  with  ^e  fact,  that  our 
poems  are  constructed  throughout  on  the  principle  of  aUiisions  to  older 
stories,  which  had  become  more  or  less  hackneyed,  and  so  were  super- 
seded by  newer  combinations.  Merely  by  way  of  example,  let  any 
one  just  turn  to  H.  ii.  690,  702,  722,  or  to  Od.  iv.  187,  v.  310,  xi.  520; 
or  let  any  one  reflect  on  the  casual  and  secondary  mention  in  the 
Odyssey  of  the  famous  episode  of  the  "Wooden  Horse"  (on  which 
Euripides  wrote  a  fine  choral  ode,  Tro.  511),  or  on  the  abrupt  manner 
with  which  the  Odyssey  opens,  implying  a  perfect  knowledge  on  the 
part  of  the  reader  (or  hearer)  of  all  the  details  of  the  coming  narrative, 
and  he  will  feel  convinced  that  our  poems  arc  nothing  but  reproductions 
of  stories  which  had  their  day,  and  passed  into  new  forms  and  phases. 
It  was  in  a  very  late  age,  and  when  the  use  of  the  F  had  become  very 
lax,  that  the  poet  wrote  in  opening  his  Odyssey, 

rdv  afioOtv  yt,  6td,  Uvyartp  ^log,  unk  Kai  iifiiv. 

If  it  be  urged,  that  the  stories  which  are  hinted  at  in  our  Homer 
were  really  " pre-homeric,  i.e.  older  tlian  even  850  B.C.,  the  answer 
is  complete ;  they  were  stories  of  which  the  fullest  and  most  circum- 
stantial accounts  were  current  in  the  Pcriclean  age,  and  of  which  the 


lO 

details  for  the  most  part  have  actually  been  preserved  by  Q.  Siuyrnaeus. 
It  is  really  preposterous  to  argue,  that  the  brief  hints  and  allusions 
were  all  that  the  genuine  "  Homer"  contained,  and  that  the  circum- 
stantial accounts  were  post-homcric  and  merely  supplementary,  "  ex- 
pansions of  hints,"  as  it  were  . 

The  power  and  the  practice  of  reproducing  the  precis(3  details,  as 
well  as  the  general  theme,  of  the  early  legends  by  late  poets,  is  a  sub- 
ject that  has  not  obtained  the  attention  it  deserves.  Quiutus  Smyrniuus 
writes  in  the  epic  language  and  versification  of  about  A.l).  300  ;  but 
he  embodies  in  his  14  Books  of  the  mis-called  "  Post-Hou)erica  "  all  the 
fuller  details  of  the  Tale  of  Troy  which  were  known  to  Pindar  and  the 
Tragics.  Apollonius  of  Rhodes  wrote  circ,  200  e.g.,  but  he  gives  lis 
the  precise  story  treated  by  Pindar  three  centuries  before  him,  and 
in  an  epic  "  Minyad "  earlier  than  that.  The  language,  remaining 
strictly  epic  in  its  character,  and  artificial  from  the  enlarged  voca- 
bulary of  imitative  forms,  which  he  uses  with  admirable  skill,  illus- 
trates the  changes  produced  by  Evolution  in  everything,  moral,  mental, 
and  physical.  But  the  outlines  of  the  story  remain,  as  it  were,  inde- 
lible. Even  when  the  consciousness  of  the  true  import  of  (say)  a  solar 
myth  has  been  lost,  and  when  ffidipus,  Philoctetes,  Theseus,  and 
Hercules,  have  come  to  be  regarded  as  real  persons  of  an  "  heroic  " 
age,  even  then,  as  in  the  dramas  of  Sophocles,  the  main  incidents  of 
the  solar  story  are  strictly  retained. 

It  seems  to  me  fallacious  to  argue,  as  Mr.  Gladstone  and  Prof. 
Jebb  do,  from  the  subject-matter  of  Homer,  (independently  of  the 
language  and  versification  which  is  so  largely  imitative  and  archaistic), 
that  "  as  a  general  picture  of  that  age  "  (viz.  the  supposed  B.C.  800) 
' '  the  Homeric  poetry  has  the  value  of  history.  It  is  manifestly  in- 
spired by  real  life."* 

It  is  obvious  that  the  argument  would  apply  equally  to  any  and 
every  Greek  epic  treating  of  the  heroic  ages.  The  concepti  jn  of  such 
ages,  the  palaces,  social  custom,  works  of  art,  &c.,  on  which  Prof. 
Jebb  founds  his  argument  in  Chapter  ii.,  were  essentially  poetic.  War- 
chariots,  though  not  in  use,  are  aiminonly  depicted  on  vases  of  the 
Periclean  age,  and  later  than  that.f  as  in  many  passages  of  Q.  Smyr- 
naeus.  But,  allowing  for  poetic  exaggerations,  and  for  local  varia- 
tions, the  Homeric  armour  is  clearly  that  of  the  Periclean  hoplite  ; 
and  Prof.   Jebb  allows  that  "  the  general  plan  of  the  Homeric  house 

*  Jebb,  Introduction  to  Homer,  p.  73. 

t  "  The  war-chariot — imi3ortant  in  Homeric  fights — had  gone  out  of  Greek 
use  before  700  B.C."    \ih}d.,  p.  GO.) 


II 

is  essentially  that  of  the  Gi'eek  house  in  historical  times  "*  The  truth 
is,  features  which  existed  in  the  age  of  a  poet  may  be,  and  undoubtedly 
were,  so  dressed  up  and  covered  with  imaginary  heroic  life,  and  the 
figments  of  mythology,  that  their  comparative  modernism  is  easily 
concealed  under  the  garb  of  a  remote  antiquity. 

Prof.  Jebb  appeals  to  the  Shield  of  Achilles,  in  II  xviii. ,  as  "  the 
most  elaborate  work  of  art  in  Homer"  (p.  G7).  He  does  not  seem 
aware,  that  it  appeai-s  to  have  been  wliolly  unknoirn  in  antiquity,  as 
far  as  we  can  judge  from  there  being  no  reference  to  it, — not  even  in 
Plato, — -in  all  the  literature  of  the  best  period.  Like  the  "  Scutmn  " 
attributed  to  Hesiod,  which  ha^  many  similar  details,  ^md  like  other 
extant  '•  shields"  in  Quintus  Smyrnteus,  this  was  probably  arranged 
for  the  written  Iliad  at  a  late  period  from  older  epics.  The  theme  wa.s 
extremely  popular,  as  were  graphic  descriptions  of  embroidery,  ApoU. 
i.  722,  Eur.  Ion  1150,  and  of  artistic  designs  such  as  Od.  xi.  (510,  xix. 
226.  I  have  elsewhere  shown  that  the  shield  which  Achilles  inherited 
from  Peleus,  alluded  to  'in  Eur.  El.  443,  sc.  97,  and  Iph.  Aul.  1070, 
involved  quite  a  different  story  and  came  from  the  very  different 
"  Homer"  that  was  known  to  the  Tragics.  I  really  cannot  go  with 
Prof.  Jebb  in  the  opinion  that  "the  Homeric  notices  of  art  belong 
mainly  to  the  interval  between  1100  and  800  B.C.,"  nor  can  I  see  any 
ground  whatever  for  such  a  conclusion.  To  my  mind,  there  are  evi- 
dent n\odernisms  to  be  detected  under  an  archaic  dissruise. 

Thus  in  H.  xviii.  495,  /3o»)v  txov,  "kept  up  a  noise"  (said  of 
flutes)  is  a  later  us(>,  (Iph.  A.  438)  (ioi)  meaning  "  a  call  for  aid,"  '  •  a  cry 
to  the  rescue,"  as  in  l3o>)v  dyaBoc,  "  good  at  need."  In  508  ^itciir  fiVt?!', 
"to  pronounce  judgment,"  (Ike,  the  imperfect  of  a  secondary  present 
tiKtjj=toiKu,  in  520,  oivov  without  the  digamma,  545,  seem  to  indicate 
the  imitative  composition  of  a  later  hand.  The  reference  to  the  song 
Liims  (570)  perhaps  indicates  an  eastern  source.  The  rare  words 
Tiipia,  "  stars  "  (485)  and  rkXiJov  (544)  came  from  Sanscrit. 

These  traditional  features  of  the  heroic  age  were  perpetuated  to 
the  latest  times.  They  are  just  as  conspicuous  in  Quintus  SmyrnjTeus  as 
in  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey.  In  the  Argonautics,  all  the  prominent 
facts  in  the  older  narrative;  of  Pindarf  are  r(;produced  without  material 
change.  So  interesting  and  so  beautiful,  as  we  have  them,  are  tho 
Telemachus,  the  Penelope,  the  Xausicaa  of  the  Odyssey,  and  so 
"  sensational  "  are  the  doings  and  sayings  of  the  Suitors,   that  it  is 

*  p.  00. 
t  Tyth.  iv. 


12 

impossible  to  conceive  tliat  the  tragics,  if  they  had  known  them  under 
the  same  form  would  so  completely  have  ignored  them.  Aeschylus 
indeed  wrote  a  "  Penelope  "  and  Sophocles  a  "Nausicaa,"  in  which 
he  described  her  as  playing  at  ball  with  her  maidens  ;  and  Pausanias 
(v.  19,  9)  says  she  "  was  thought  to  be  represented  "  on  the  chest  of 
Cyijselus,  and  she  was  also  painted  in  the  Pro^jylaea  at  Athens  by 
Polygnotus  (i,  22.  6),  while  the  "suitors"  of  Penelope  were  painted 
by  Polygnotus  at  Plataea  (ix.  4.  2).  But  what  has  all  this  to  do  with 
the  dating  of  the  Odyssey  B.C.  800  or  850  ?  If,  with  Mr.  Wilkhis,* 
we  are  content  to  believe  that  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  were  "  fully 
finished  (I)  before  the  first  Olympiad,"  how  are  we  to  account  for  the 
solitary  mention  in  Tragedy  of  Telemachus,t  and  that  in  a  passage 
when  the  reference  to  him  is  so  comj)letely  illogical  that  it  is  most 
probably  an  interpolation  ? 

These  characters  were  known,  but  not  prominerdlt)  cehbrutcd  till 
the  present  Odyssey  had  attained  its  full  poijularity.  That,  I  have 
no  doubt,  is  why  Odysseus  is  described  twice  in  the  Iliad  (ii.  260  and 
iv.  3o4)  as  "  the  Father  of  Telemachus,"  an  attribute  due  to  the  re- 
lations in  the  Odyssey,  and  from  it  interpolated  or  worked  into  the 
lUad. 

The  principle  of  reproduction  by  redupUcation  had  a  great  deal  to 
do  with  the  change  (as  I  may  call  it)  of  the  old  Homer  into  the  new 
Homer.  The  hackneyed  stories  of  the  old  Troica  were  becoming 
worn  out.  Helen  and  her  suitors  (Aesch.  Ag.  62,  Thuc.  i.,  9,  Eur. 
Iph,  Aul.  52),  the  ap-aayt]  and  the  "Voirj/ffif,  the  "  Judgment  of 
Paris,"  the  marriage  of  Peleus  and  Thetis,  were  j)retty  well  played 
out,  and  the  public  began  to  look  for  new  combinations.  The 
"  suitors  "  were  transferred  from  Helen  to  Penelope,  the  transforma- 
tions of  Thetis  into  those  of  Proteus  in  Od.  iv.,  Telegonus  (a  true  solar 
name)  was  changed  into  the  metrically  equivalent  Telemachus,  each 
being  a  type  of  that  fiovoytin)i;  v\bQ  which  is  so  characteristic  of  solar 
pedigree.  The  beggar's  guise  in  Avhich  Odysseus  appeared  at  Troy 
(Od.  iv.  224,  Eur.  Hec.  240,  Rhes.  712)  became  the  ragged  dress  of  the 
beggar  of  the  Odyssey  ;  the  /i»ji'«g  of  Achilles  and  Agamemnon  became 
that  of  Achilles  and  Odysseus  (Od.  viii.  75),  the  carrying  of  the  body 
of  Memnon  through  the  air  was  transferred  to  Sarpedon,  and  so  on, 
with  more  than  one  narrative  about  invulnerable  heroes  who  could 
only  be  slain  by  an  injury  to  the  ankle  (again  a  solar  myth).  It  was 
thus,  that  in  an  age  when  women  had  begun  to  take  their  just  part 

*  Growth  of  thu  Homeric  Pooms,  p.  1(53. 
t  Orest.  588  ^B.f.  408), 


13 

in  social  life,  ii  Helen  and  a  Penelope  were  invested  with  new 
attributes,  and  Helen  ceased  to  be  the  "  she-devil,"  the  Erinys  of  the 
tragedies,  and  became  a  kindly  and  hospitable  matron. 

In  the  same  way  the  Odysseus  and  the  Menelaus  of  our  Homer 
are  by  no  means  the  treacherous  villains  that  they  are  uniformly  made 
to  appear  in  tragedy.  It  is  a  jjerverso  view,  that  the  bad  character 
shows  "  decadence  "  from  the  good,  as  represented  by  Homer.  Why 
shoidd  the  poets  of  the  most  cultiu-ed  age  in  Attica  have  systemati- 
cally preferred  the  bad  'f  Bather,  we.  have  to  contemplate  the  evolution 
from  savagery  to  Sociiitic  teaching.  No  man  of  sense  now  holds  that 
early  man  was  good  and  moral,  just  and  chaste,  and  that  later  man 
became  depi-aved. 

When  Sophocles  in  the  Ajax  represents  Hector  as  being  killed  by 
being  dragged  at  the  car  by  Achilles,  and  tied  to  it  by  the  belt  with 
Avliich  he  had  been  presented  by  Ajax;  when  he  takes  the  subject  of 
his  drama  from  a  "  Cyclic  "  theme,  the  luadness  of  the  h(!ro  from  dis- 
appointment at  not  having  the  armour  of  Achilles  awarded  to  him  ; 
when  we  find  too  an  allusion  to  a  trick  played  in  voting  with  ballots,  * 
and  considerable  discrepancies  about  the  firing  of  the  Grecian  fleet, — 
we  feel  certain  that  the  Iliad  had  not  then  received  its  final  redaction 
as  a  written  literaiy  poem. 

Mr.  Leaf,  in  his  edition  of  the  Iliad,  gives  as  a  frontispiece  to 
Vol.  i.,  an  "Homeric"  scene,  with  three  names,  from  an  inscribed 
vase,  not  of  very  early  date.  In  his  engraving  only  one  name  is 
legible,  and  that  is  •t'oTrt?.  I  think  he  is  mistaken  in  supposing 
a  wi'ong  nanxe  was  written  through  the  carelessness  of  the  artist. 
This  is  merely  an  instance  of  the  fluctuating  and  unsettled  stories 
before  a  written  Iliad  had  become  the  "  textus  receptus  "  of  Homer. 

The"On-X(ui' /epiTtf,  the  contest  for  the  arms  of  Achilles,  and  the 
consequent  madness  of  Ajax,  was  one  of  the  most  famous  episodes  in 
the  old  Troics.  Aeschylus  wi-ote  a  drama  with  that  titl.;  ;  the  incident 
is  narrated  at  length  in  Q.  Smyrnaeus,  Bk.  V.,  and  alluded  to  in  Od. 
xi.  545,  as  one  of  the  many  "stale  stories"  kno/m  to  everybody 
and  no  longer  in  their  high  repute.  It  is  also  given  by  Pindar,  Nem. 
vii.,  25.  Isthm.  iii.  53. 

Prof.  Jebb,  by  taking  from  us  the  proi)Osition,  that  ' '  ps'udo- 
ejiic"  or    "  arcliaistic  "   imitations,  involving  a  misconception  of    the 

*  See  Aj.  1029  and  1 1'i.j.  Tlic  account  in  II.  xxii.  'Sdb  givca  (juitc  a  diltorcut 
version  of  the  uf£air. 


14 

original  moanino;  and  formation,  must  be  characteristics  of  a  post- 
epic  period,  deprives  us  ot  our  best  hope  of  solving  the  problem. 
We  are  called  upon  to  believe  that  such  an  absurdity  as  ox 
apiuTog  coexisted  with  the  genuine  phr.ase  t^o^a  ("piarog,  "The 
possibility  of  false  archaisms,"  he  says  (p.  138),  "  began  as  soon 
as  there  were  genuine  archaisms.  False  archaisms  might  have  been 
made  in  800  or  900  B.C.,  as  easily  as  in  450  B.C.,  by  an  Ionian  poet 
who  found  in  the  traditional  epic  diction  certain  forms  or  phrases 
which  no  longer  existed  in  the  living  idiom  of  his  day."  It  is  hard  to 
reason  cogently  on  these  obscure  subjects,  or  to  go  much  beyond  the 
convenient  and  comprehensive  "might  have  been,"  in  an  age  when 
there  was  no  written  literature.  It  is  a  fact,  and  a  wonderful  fact, 
that  the  epic  remained  a  perfectly  distinct  poetic  dialect,  we  might  even 
say,  a  language  of  its  own,  for  moi-e  than  a  thousand  years.  If  we 
open  the  pages  of  an  epic  poem  very  raanj^  centuries  later  than  the 
date  assigned  to  Homer,  and  take  for  examination,  Avithout  any 
special  selection,  a  few  consecutive  verses  to  illustrate  the  style  of  the 
time, — call  it  "pedantic,"  "affected,"  "learned,"  "pseudo-archaic,"  or 
any  other  name  in  contrast  Avith  the  divine  Homer, — we  shall  fully 
feel  how'michaugod  in  effect,  that  is,  in  all  its  leading  characteristics, 
this  "  epic  language  "  continued  to  be.  If  Apollonius  of  Ehodes 
could  write  the  following  verses,  I  know  not  why  a  nameless  rhapsode 
or  literary  editor  should  not  have  put  together  an  Iliad  in  B.C.,  400. 

ApoU.  Ehod.  i.  774—781  :— 

jQj)  S'  Ifiivai  vpori  darv  (pativto  aarkpi  laoq, 
ov  pa  Tt  VTjyariymv  hpyo^uvai  KaXv^hjcnv 
vvfifai  6tii'i(Tai>To  Cofiwv  vntp  avrkWovTa, 
Kcd  aipKTi  KvafEoio  di   i^'fpoq  ofifiara  GkXyei 
KaXbi'  iptvOofitvoc;,  yavvrai  St  re  i]iBioio 
rrapGb'og  ifiiipovaa  /itr'  dXXoSanoiaiv  tuvroQ 
dvSpdffLV,  "5  icai  fiiv  jivjjarfiv  Ko^kovai  roKiieQ' 
Tw  iKeXoQ  irpo  TToXyjoQ  dvd  ari^ov  i'jisv  ?}pwf. 

Q.  SmjTnaeus,  vi.  159 — 165  : — 

dfiSxQ  5'  avTt  Opovovg  Soiw  Oeuav  iyyvg  dvdaaijq, 
al4/a  §'  'AXk^avSpoQ  Kar'  dp'  liltTO,  nap  S'  dpa  T<Sye 
EvpvTTvXoQ-  Xaol  ck  vrpo  dvrtoQ  auXiv  IQivTO, 
ijxi  (pvXaKTriptg  Tpujtov  taav  o^pinoGvixor 
altlia  U  TEvx^a  GiJKav  iiri  x^ova,  Trap  de  kul  linrovg 
aT})aav  tri  irviiovTUQ  oi^vpolo  jioyoio. 

All  these  verses  arc  quit-e  "  Homeric  "  in  language  and  rhythm, 
even  in  the  observation  of  the  F  in  do-v,  laog,  \ki\o^,  though  not  in 


15 

a».'a(To/;c.    Nov  has  (lie  composer  of  the  Iliad  hesitated  to  wiite  (xix.  12-1), 
ov  01  «'t(K£f  nvaaa'tf^iiv  ' Apytioioiv. 

It  is  needless  to  remark,  though  there  seem  to  be  some  minds  on 
which  the  observation  has  no  force  at  all,  that  though  a  late  repro- 
duction, as  that  of  the  "  Cyclics  "  by  Quiutus,  may  abound  in  very 
old  forms  and  inflexions,  (be  they  Aeolic,  or  Achaean,  or  the  old  Ionic) 
yet  the  admixture  of  these  with  a  vocabulary  presumably  new  by 
comparison,  such  as  that  of  Herodotus  and  the  jjure  Attic  of  the  time 
of  Aristophanes,  proves  a  rt'Cdsfiii;;  and  complete  remodelling  ;  the  new 
element,  the  epic  veojTtpi(Tiudg,  cannot  be  explained  away  on  any  theory 
of  interpolation,  or  corruption  of  transcribers,  or  by  Prof.  Jebb's  ingen- 
ious argument  about  "pseudo-archaic"  forms,  r/z.,  that  they  may 
possibly  be  as  old  as  the  genuine.  The  matter  is  one  thing, — archaic, 
heroic,  unhistoric,  unreal,  in  all  epics  alike,  of  whatever  date ;  the 
manner,  i.e.,  the  language  which  is  the  exponent,  tells  the  real  tale. 
It  is  this  which  assures  us,  as  I  strongly  contend,  that  "  our  Homer  '' 
is  no  more  a  composition  of  B.C.  800  than  are  the  "  Argonautics  "  or 
the   "  post-Homerica  "  of  whose  late  dates  we  happen  to  be  assured.* 

In  •  the  same  manner  the  argument  from  archaeology  completely 
breaks  down.  It  is  easy,  for  instance,  to  point  to  the  primitive  con- 
struction of  the  "Homeric  house,"  and  the  avXt)  as  a  cattle-yard  in 
front ;  such,  no  doubt,  and  quite  naturally,  was  the  early  form  of  the 
house  or  palace  of  a  chief  in  the  heroic  ages.  But  if  ai'-A?)  also  means, 
as  it  must  in  Od.  iv.  74,  Zijvog  irov  Toir]h  y  'OXv^niov  h'SoOtv  auXi),  and 
as  it  plainly  does  in  Aesch.  Prom.  122,  oiroaoi  ti]v  i^ibq  au\i)v  daoixvivaiv, 
the  court,  or  palace,  aula  ;  the  kuWi^oq  aiiXt)  of  Q.  Smymaeus,  vii.  227  ; 
if,  moreover  we  find  the  aiiX/)  described  as  "  higlily  decorated  in  wall 
and  cornice  "  (Od.  xvii.  206),  and  even  containing  an  altar  of  T-iig 
"EpKtioQ  in  the  centre  (Od.  xxii.  379),  we  distrust  the  genuine  antiquity 
of  the  descriptions,  and  see  in  them  only  the  play  of  poetic  fancy 
dealing  as  it  pleases  with  old  and  vague  traditions.  I  cannot,  for  my 
own  part,  assign  the  same  weight  to  the  "  plan  of  the  Homeric 
House,"  in  p.  58,  which  it  has  in  Prof.  Jebb's  argument. 

*  When  I  find  in  Apollonius  and  Q.  Smyrnaens,  the  freciueut  use  of  log 
as  tuus  and  tvTt  as  r)i>Ti,  and  meet  with  these  spurioup  modernisms  also  in  the  Iliad 
(iii.  10)  ^eoio  being  thinly  disguised  under  a  reading  t/Joc,  ''brave"),  I  feel 
sure  that  late  patch-work  is  indicated.  In  every  one  of  tlie  following  passages 
£070,  tui,  is  shown  by  the  context  to  be  the  reading  intended,  viz.,  A.  '6'Jii,  0.  138, 
T.  ;jl-2,  £2.422,550. 


i6 

Olio  fiiUiicy  that  soonia  to  iiio  to  vitiate  the  reasoning  of  so  many 
is  the  proposition  that  the  rlato  of  a  poem  must  be  tested,  not  by  its 
language,  but  by  the  manners  and  the  social  state  which  it  describes. 
Thus  the  Quarterly  Eeviewer  of  Schliemann's  "  Tiryns"  insists*  that 
"Homer  reflects  the  prehistoric  ago  of  Greece  as  faithfully  as  docs 
Herodotus  the  Greece  of  the  Persian  Wars,  or  Pausanias  the  Greece 
of  the  age  of  the  Antonuies."  What  Homer,  what  aU  epic  poets  re- 
flect is,  not  the  actual  life  and  customs  of  a  past  age,  but  their  poetic 
and  highly  coloured  conceptions  of  it.  Instead  therefore  of  calling 
the  Homeric  house  of  the  Odyssey  "  the  prototj^ie  of  the  later  Greek 
house  of  the  historical  age  "  i  Jebb,  p.  186),  I  should  have  said,  "  the 
later  Greek  house  suggested  to  the  later  poet  the  idea  of  what  a  house 
might  have  been  in  the  heroic  ages."  As  for  Priam's  palace  and  its 
fifty  chambers  of  cut  and  squared  stone  (II.  vi.  242),  it  seems  to  nxe 
impossible  to  regard  it  as  anything  but  a  poetical  fiction  based  on 
traditional  ideas,  like  the  solar  palace  in  Orph.  Arg.  900  seqq. 

Archaic  descriptions  may  be  fallacious  and  so  may  archaic  forms 
of  words.  But  neoterisms,  and  the  occurrence  of  a  large  class  of  words 
evidently  pertaining  to  the  New  Ionic  and  to  the  Middle  Attic,  afford 
evidence  that  it  is  impossible  to  set  aside. 

Widely  different  in  their  subjects  as  well  as  in  their  nationality, 
were  the  various  lays  out  of  which  the  Iliad  was  compiled.  There 
were  Achaean  stories  about  the  house  of  Atreus,  Peleus,  Thetis, 
Achilles,  many  of  them  clearly  solar  in  their  origin ;  Aetolian  stories, 
including  the  speeches  of  old  Nestor  and  the  legends  of  Elis ; 
Asiatic,  as  those  of  Phrygia  and  Mysia  about  Priam,  Paris, 
Tithonus,  Laomcdon,  Aeneas,  &c.,  and  others  again  Lycian,  which 
perhaps  came  through  Cyprvis  (whence  the  so-called  iirt]  Kvirpia) 
from  Euphratean  sources,  viz.,  stories  about  Pandarus,  Glaucus, 
Sarpedon,  Bellerophon.  As  we  know  that  the  ancient  geographers 
connected  the  Nile  with  the  Eujjhrates,  and  Aethiopia  with  India 
and  the  far  east,  it  is  most  probable  that  the  once  famous  and 
very  beautiful  legend  of  Memnon,  son  of  Eos,  came  from  the  same 
sun-worshipping  countries. 

It  was  perfectly  competent  for  any  "Editor"  who  had  this  vast 
mass  of  material  to  work  upon,  or  for  any  rhapsode  of  sufficient 
genius,  to  epitomise  and  combine  in  a  narrative  maintaining  through- 
out a  thread, — not  always  an  unbroken  one, — of  unity,  all  the  various 
and  heterogeneous  legends  about  the  heroes  at  Troy,  and  to  express 

*  Q.  R.  Jan.  188G,  p.  118. 


17 

them  in  the  modified  (pseudo-archaic  or  "  archaistic  ")  epic 
hmguage  of  his  time.  Here  I  agree  ^\^th  Mr.  Wilkins ;  *  "  We  are 
naturally  led  to  the  conclusion  that  those  single  narratives  are  the 
original  elements,  and  that  their  union  was  an  afterthought." 

Not  long,  I  think,  before  B.C.  -100  the  time  had  arrived  when,  with 
increased  facilities  of  transcription,  which  hitherto  seems  to  have  had 
no  better  appliances  than  lettovs  2>ui>tted  on  wooden  StXroi  or  nivaKeg.^ 
a  want  was  felt  for  a  more  convenient  and  handy  and  generally  ac- 
cessible and  uniform  literary  version  of  the  Troica,  wliich  had  hitherto 
existed  in  a  detached,  fluctuating  and  desultory  form  in  the  schools 
of  the  rhapsodists,  who,  no  doubt,  were  to  a  great  extent  "speci- 
alists," and  had  their  own  parts  adapted  to  their  genius  for  ndOoe  or 
iKTrXij^iQ.  From  the  titles  of  these  very  numerous  "parts"  came,  in 
the  Alexandi-ine  schools,  the  headings  of  the  different  Books,  or  pa^pqiSiai 
of  their  Homer,  as  well  as  the  titles  they  assigned  to  the  minor  poems 
of  their  Cyclus. 

A  written  Iliad  or  Odyssey  was  a  very  different  thing, — that  is, 
when   transcribed   and   circulated  in   its   entirety,    and  not  held  in 

*  Growth  of  the  Homeric  Poems,  x>.  57. 

f  Even  in  the  time  of  Demosthenes  (De  Coron.§  958)  ink  was  not  a  fiuid,  but 
a  pigment,  prepared,  as  our  paints  are,  bj'  rubbing  on  a  slab  [rpifitiv  to  /iiXav). 
To  the  wiping  o^with  a  sponge  any  words  to  be  obliterated,  Aeschylus  probalily 
refers  hi  the  well-known  verse,  Ag.  1329,  jSoXaig  vypataffaiv  airoyyo^  u)\taiv 
ypiKpifv.  The  art  of  writing  (that  of  cutting  inscriptions  is  quite  another  matter) 
must  have  had  a  very  long  and  very  gradual  period  of  evolution.  I  have  shown, 
in  "  Bibliographia  Graeca,"  that  written  books,  3i/3\ia,  i.e.,  the  transcription 
and  sale  of  copies,  cannot  be  traced  much  earlier  than  B.C.  400.  The  celebrated 
verse  in  II.  vi.  109, 

ypdil/ag  iv  irivaKi  vrvKT^o  6vno(j>96pa  TroXXa, 
is  capable  of  an  easy  and  satisfactory  explanation,  if  only  we  apply  the  right  koyi 
the  lateness  of  the  compilation  of  the  poem  in  its  present  form.  The  aiipura 
\),ypd  were,  in  the  original  Lycian  story,  some  kind  of  symbolical  or  "hierogl}'- 
phic  "  writing;  but  when  such  a  form  as  tTrtixlivuTo  (ICO)  had  found  its  way 
into  the  epic  vocabulary,  ordinary  writing  on  folded  strips  of  wood  had  become 
qtdte  common,  and  the  -nrvxai  or  lianTuxnl  were  the  leaves  or  overlappings  of 
the  missive.  The  word  noWa  is  altogether  absurd  as  ap])lied  to  more  symbols  ;  the 
eimplo  meaning  is,  that  Proetus  wrote  many, things  about  liellcrophon  in  a  letter, 
calculated  to  destroy  the  good  feelings  or  natural  impulses  {Qryfibv  fOeipiiv)  of  a 
host  towards  hii  guest.  Doederleln  here  is  quite  right,  "  scribeiido  quae  eoceri 
animurn  corrumperent  ad  suspicionom  ct  odium  et  porfidiam  urga  liospilom.' 
But  it  must  be  conceded  that  the  nivu^  ittuktoq  will  not  stand  the  orthodox  date 
of  B.C.  800. 


18 

isolated  portions  (wliicli  uiay  be  conceded  as  a  probability)  as  the 
private  possessions  of  rhapsodes.  All  other  theories  about  a  "written 
Homer  "  are  the  purest  guess-work,  mere  guess  too  is  Mr.  Wilkms' 
assumption*  that  "  the  poems"  (Iliad  and  Odyssey)  "  were  no  doubt 
handed  down  iu  the  schools  of  the  rhapsodists  with  as  much  jealous 
care  as  that  which  guarded  religious  learning  among  the  Jews." 

Speaking  generally  we  may  say,  that  until  Humer  was  transcribed 
and  circulated,  and  a  certain  recension  had  taken  precedence  over 
all  others,  it  was  not  probable  that  any  real  fixity  of  text  coidd  have 
existed. 

Mr.  Jebb  (Homer  p.  114)  rightly  says  that  "  a  purely  oral  trans- 
mission is  hardly  conceivable  ;  "  but  then  he  thinks  the  rhapsodes  may 
have  "  possessed  written  copies."  I  think  he  is  right,  with  two  import- 
ant limitations, — that  each  may  have  had  his  tablets  {SiXroi  or  nivaKt^)  of 
his  particular  part,  and  that  this  could  hardly  have  been  commonly 
the  case  before  450  B.C.  Even  at  that  time  the  clumsiness  and  mal- 
formation of  the  letters  of  the  alphabet  were  something  extraordinary  I 

Can  we  conceive  cursive  writiiiy  with  a  pen,  or  a  written  Iliad  at 
a  period  when  inscriptions  were  either  from  right  to  left,  or  ^ovarpo- 
^r]Uv  ?  Why  is  there  not  a  single  tenu,  till  comparatively  late  times, 
to  express  any  materials  for  writing  beyond  the  ^t\roQ  ?  It  is  very  easy 
to  conjecture,  with  Mr.  Grote  and  Mr.  \Vilkins,t  that  "j)apyruswa3 
obtained  in  large  quantities  in  the  7th  century  B.C."  Why  then  is 
pvjiXoQ  and  ^v(3\iov  never  mentioned  except  as  a  scrap  of  material  for 
a  short  missive  'r  There  is  no  proof  that  papyrus  was  used  for  books  by 
the  Greeks  till  the  Alexandrine  age. 

The  Tragics,  it  is  evident,  continued  to  follow  the  old  traditional 
Homerics  of  the  rhapsodes  tip  to  the  latest  times  of  the  Attic  stage  in 
its  palmy  days.  The  latest  play  of  Euripides,  the  Iphigenia  at  AuJis, 
is  constructed  entirely  out  of  the  Cypria.X  It  seems  to  me  improbable 
that  they  ever  worked  on  a  written  Homer. 

*  Growth  of  the  Homeric  Poems  poems,  p.  25. 

t  "  Growth  of  the  Homeric  Poems,"  p.  22. 

X  Proclus,  Chrest.  A,  iv.,  IS.akxa-VTOQ  Si  uttovtoq  rfiv  r^g  Giov  fiiji'tv  Kal 
'Ifiyhtiav  Ki\iv<nivTOQ  9vuv  t\]  'Aprifitli,  ug  tnl  yafiov  avTijv  ' Ax^XXii 
fiiTaTTifiipafiei'oi  i)vuv  imxupovaiV  'AprffiiQ  Si  avTi)v  lEapirdaaan  tiQ  Tavpovg 
lisraKOftiZn-  Kai  tlOavarov  ttoih,  'iXa^ov  <>i  uvtI  tFjq  KopriQ  Trapiarriai  T(«  fiwfiw. 
Herodotus  ^\\.  117;  doubted  if  this  poem  (which  was  clearly  of  primary  authority 
in  Attica  in  the  Periclean  age),  was  rightly  ascribed  to^Homer. 


19 

I  t'c'fl  iiliuosf  in  (li'Spiiir  in  convincing  anyone  of  tliiit  "adaptatiun  " 
ov  "  repiodiiction  "  theory  which  ahjne  satisfactorily  accounts  for  such 
long  and  complete  poems,  who  falls  back  on  the  suggestion  that,  after 
all,  our  Iliad  and  our  Odyssey  may  have  been  written  down  from  the 
first  :  Ihis  is  Mr.  Grote's  talk  about  "  collating  M8S.  of  the  Iliad  in 
the  time  of  Solon."  Thus  writes  Prof.  Jebb  (p.  110)  ;  "  If  the  Greek 
writing  on  the  earliest  extant  max'bles  is  clumsy,  this  does  not  neces- 
sarily prove  that  the  Greeks  were  then  (i.e.  Tthcent.)  unfamiliar  with 
the  art  of  writing,  but  only  that  they  had  not  yet  acquired  facility  in 
carving  characters  on  stone.  Long  before  that  time  they  may  have 
attained  to  ease  in  writing  on  softer  and  more  perishable  materials 
such  as  leaves,  prepared  skins,  wood  or  wax." 

Truly,  this  is  a  ilvus  ex  madiwa  to  explain  what  is  self-evidently 
an  impossibility,  the  "  Homer  "  of  Plato  being  the  "Homer"  of  B.C. 
8j0  !  Fancy  the  twenty  four  Books  of  the  Iliad  written  out  (/Souorpo- 
(pil'oi')  with  a  pen,  ctiduries  before  the  smallest  allusion  to  writing  a^ 
an  art,  or  to  wi'iting  and  reading  as  a  piactice,  can  be  found  I  All 
theories  of  a  written  literature  of  anything  like  such  antiquity  are 
based  on  a  total  misconception  of  the  social  habits  and  education  of 
the  Greeks.  When  we  discover  a  fossil  man  in  the  chalk,  then  we  may 
hope  to  discover  a  jjainting  ou  a  Greek  vase  representing  some  one 
with  pen,  ink,  and  paper  engjiged  in  writing,  as  seen  in  Egyptian 
tombs.  What  is  the  use  of  asserting  (p.  Ill),  "  It  is  certain  that 
writing  was  used  by  Archilochus  and  other  poets  of  the  early  7th 
century."  Where  are  the  proofs,  in  the  absence  of  all  nomenclature 
of  the  details  of  the  art  ?     The  Abu-Simbcl  inscription,  I  suppose  ! 

I  must  say,  the  following  sentence  seems  intended  to  balance  one 
impossibility  against  another;  to  "  mystify  "  i-ather  than  to  point  the 
true  way  out  of  a  difficulty. 

"  The  general  conclusion  then  is  as  follows.  It  cannot  be  proved 
that  the  Homeric  poems  [i.e.  Iliad  and  Odyssey]  were  not  committed 
to  writing  either  when  originally  composed  (U'  soon  afterwards.  For 
centuries  they  were  known  to  llie  Greek  world  at  huge  cliieHy  tJjiough 
tin;  mouths  of  rhapsodes.  But  that  fact  is  not  inconsistent  with  the 
supposition  that  thi;  rhapsodes  possessed  written  copiers.  On  the  other 
hand,  a  purely  oral  transmission  is  hardly  conceivable"  (p.  114). 

If  the  rhapsodes  possessed  from  tlui  first  written  copies  of  (ho 
Iliad  and  the  Odyssey,  how  comes  it  that  Pindar  and  tlie  Tragics  liad 
a  totally  different  "  Hom(>r,"  and  that  we  can  make  out  so  long  a  list 
of  di-amas  composed  from  "  non-Homeric  "  Troica  ? 


20 

But  how  is  it  possible,  people  ask,  that  an  older  Homer  should 
have  become  obsolete  and  a  new  Homer  have  quietly,  and  without 
any  record  of  the  fact,  taken  its  place  ? 

The  answer  to  this  difficulty,  which  is  a  real,  but  by  no  means  an 
insurmountable  one,  is  to  be  found  partly  in  the  verses  quoted  on  the 
title-page,  and  partly  in  the  very  nature  of  a  gradual  transition  from 
oral  to  written  epopee.  There  woidd  be  "survivals"  of  recitation 
(as  we  know  the  practice  of  "  spouting  "  continued  in  the  age  of  Plato 
and  Xenoi>hon),  and  consequently  a  vagueness  as  to  what  "  Homer  " 
really  was,  till  the  written  form,  from  its  superior  convenience  and 
merits,  had  made  its  way  slowly  but  surely  to  the  undisputed  claim  of 
being  "  Homer."     There  was  progress,  but  not  revolution. 

Prof.  Jebb  says  (p.  157),  "  there  is  no  doubt  (?)  that  the  first  book 
of  the  existing  Iliad  formed  the  beginning  of  the  primaiy  Iliad,"  i.e. 
dates  some  800  or  more  B.C. 

I  believe  not  a  single  allusion  to  any  of  the  incidents  in  Book  i.  is 
to  bo  found  in  any  of  the  Attic  dramas  ;  and  if  it  be  said  that  Pind. 
01.  ii.  79,  clearly  refers  to  II.  i.  504,  where  Thetis  makes  her  prayer 

to  Zeus, 

ro^t  fjioi  Kpriiji'ov  itXSiop, 
TilXtJffOV  fioi  v'lov, 

I  reply,  Take  up  your  Pindar  and  rrad  on  ;    and  then  read  Proclus, 
Chrest.  A.,  for  the  epitome  of  the  "  Cyin-ia."     Pindar  has, 

'A\'(\Xfa  r'  ti'iiK,  tns'i  Zfjj'og  i/rop 

\LTcnQ  iTTfifTf,  finrtjp 

oe'E/crop'  tfT0aXt,  'TpwaQ 

"ua\of  (i(Trpaj3?i  Ktova,  KIikvov  ri  Qavari^  iropiv, 

' XovQ  rt  iralS'  AtOioTra. 

Had  he  here  before  him  "  our  Iliad  "  ? 

We  learn  from  Proclus  that  the  nmng  'A  xiX^f '■'C  was  an  incident  of 
the  "  Cypria,"  Kai  'A^iXXn^c  vttepoq  KXrjOeti:  (i.e.  invited  late  to  join  the 
Ti-ojan  expedition)  SiapspETai  -n-poQ  'Aya/xf/xi'oj/a.  It  was  after  this  that 
Chryssis  and  Bri^eis  the  captives  were  allotted,  and  the  quarrel  ahoat 
them  is  the  later  account :  ical  Ik  rihv  Xacpirpiov  'AxiXXti'C  fiiv  Bpiatpa 
yipae  Xa^ilMvei,  Xpvo7)iSa  St  'Aya/xe/ii'Wi',      (Compare  Aesch.  Ag.  1439). 

The  raids  in  the  Troad,  and  the  taking  of  numerous  captives 
(often  alluded  to  in  the  Iliad),  were  a  very  important  feature,  in  the 
older  Troica,  of  the  early  condict  of  the  siege.     From  the  "  Cypria" 


21 

were  boiTowed  the  sacliiiig  of  Lyniossus  and  Pedasus,*  the  capture  of 
Lycaon,  the  slaj-ing  of  Troihis,  the  "  judgment  of  Paris,"  tho  "rape 
of  Helen,"  the  portent  of  the  snake  and  the  sparrows  at  Aidis,  &o. 

What  Pindar's  "Homer  "  had  sung  about  tho  shipng  of  Memnon, 
the  Alexandrines  relegated  to  a  separate  poem  to  which  they  give  the 
title  of  Ai'9(07ri'c,  from  which  we  have  the  fine  narrative  in  Book  ii  of 
Q.  Smyrnaeus,  together  with  the  incident  described  in  Pylh.  vi.  ."JO, 
Q.  S.  ii.  257,  and  aUndrd  f<>  in  Od.  iv.  187,  Soph.  Phil.  425.  lu 
Pindar's  time,  unquestionably,  the  story  was  simply  a  portion  of  the 
Troica,  a  'Mifivovo^  aptortir]  or  by  whatever  title  it  was  then  known. 

The  following  Lines,  from  the  fourteenth  Book  of  the  Post- 
homerica  (125 — 142)  give  a  good  epitome  of  the  deeds  of  Acliilles 
according  to  the  Troica  known  to  Pindar,  Isthm.  vii.  (a.c.  480).  (Tho 
scene  is  immediately  after  the  fall  of  Troy.) 

' '  Then  sang  the  bards  how  first  the  assembled  host 
At  holy  Aulis  met ;  Peleides'  boast 
Of  spear  unconquered  and  unwearied  might 
In  deeds  of  prowess,  and  his  grim  delight 
To  sack  twelve  cities  on  the  course  to  Troy, 
Eleven  more  on  mainland  to  destroy ; 
Then  Telei^hus,  Eetion  tho  strong, 
Cycnus  that  champion  bold,  and  in  the  throng 
Memnon,  Penthesilea,  he  sternly  slew  ; 
How  hard  fared  all,  while  he  his  aid  withdrew ; 
How  Hector  round  his  native  walls  he  sped, 
How  Glaucus  by  the  hand  of  Ajax  bled, 
Eurypylus  by  PjTrhus  was  laid  low, 
And  Paris  fell  by  Philoctetes'  bow ; 
How  many  chiefs  the  Wooden  Horse  contained 
To  seize  by  fraud  the  fort  where  Priam  reigned  ; 
How  feasted  all  in  peace,  when  Ilium  fell ; 
And  each  bard  sang,  and  each  a  different  tale  did  tell."t 

*  See  Proclu3,  Chrest.,  tirtira  rrfv  xiopav  tTri^tXQovTfq  TropOovcri  Kai  Tag 
TTipiotKovQ  TToXtig.  This  is  plainly  referred  to  in  Time,  i.  11,  where  he  »ays  that 
the  army  expected  to  maintain  itself  in  the  Troad  by  plunder. 

tThat  the  subject-matter  of  Pindar  and  the  tragics  is  preserved,  not  in  our 
Homer  but  in  the  mis-called  "  Post-honierica,"  (au  epitoinj  of  tho  ci/cUi-s  by  Q. 
Smyrnaeus).  I  showed  conclusively  in  "  (^uintus  Smyrnajus  and  the  Homer  of 
the  Tragic  Poets,"  1872. 


22 

I  read  \vitli  a  feeling  of  sonietliing  like  astoiiisliment  tlic  iciuitrk 
of  Mr.  Loaf  (Iiiirod.  to  Iliad,  p.  xvi  ,  tliat  *'  there  is  no  reason  wliy 
we  shonld  desi)air  of  I'eproducing  the  Homer  of  Thucydides  or  even  of 
Pindar."  Does  he  then  really  believe  that  Pin  lar  had  the  very  same 
Iliad  that  is  quoted  by  Plato  ?  As  for  Thucydides,  though  he  had  the 
KardXo/of ,  he  i'ead  in  li  is  Homer  the  making  of  the  camp- wall  the 
first  year  of  the  landing  (i.  11.) 

With  regard  to  the  "  petition  of  Thetis,"  there  is  not  a  doubt  that 
Pindar  and  the  Iliad  give  (liJfWtnt  versions  from  the  ohhr  svlur  story. 
Achilles,  f'.f.  the  sun,  who  seems  to  rise  out  of  the  sea  and  ascend  in 
glory  to  the  sky,  partook  of  both  the  earthly  and  the  heavenly,  and 
so  was  said  to  have  been  born  of  a  mortal  and  an  immortal.  In  Homer, 
the  "  honour  "  asked  for  AchiUes  is  merely  the  military  honour  of  the 
historical  and  later  ti'eatment  of  the  story,  viz.  that  his  aid  may  prove 
necessary  to  the  Greeks ;  in  Pindar,  the  making  of  the  hero  a  demigod, 
and  nothing  less  than  his  ajiotheosis,  is  demanded. 

So  much  for  Iliad  i  and  B.C.  850.  In  my  opinion,  such  words  as 
aVi/i'<?fij',  aTifiai',  diK'ii^fiv,  KoX({)dv,  Trapuirtlv  without  the  F  (i.  iyoo), 
inpiffxio  Ttai^dc  tijog,  "  protect  Tjour  son  "  (a  reading  introduced  by 
critics  to  evade  the  spurious  use  of  fo7o  for  titi,)  npoOtovcnv,  an  "  ar- 
chaistic  "  figment  for  irpoTiQiaaiv,  291,  'iva  vjipiv  'iSy,  \vithout  F,  203, 
ff/a  fieXaivav  ipiiavofiiv,  again  without  F,  141,  inirtj^ic,  142,  ox'  "piTroc 
(that  nonsensical  "archaism"  for  t^oxc)  69,  and  a  great  many  other 
"  weaknesses  "  in  the  first  Book,  show  the  imitative  epic  of  the  Platoidc 
period,  not  the  genuine  archaic  vocabulary  of  the  ninth  centiu-y  B.C. 
The  one  expression,  to  Kpriyvov  tJirag  (106),  is  a  terrible  stumbling- 
block  ;  it  is  the  unexpected  apparition  of  a  Platonic  and  Alexandrine 
word  among  verses  supposed  to  represent  the  earliest  epic  ! 

Mr.  Jebb  contends  that  Book  ii.  of  the  Iliad,  though  an  addition, 
together  with  the  "  Catalogue,"  to  the  supposed  "  primary  Iliad," 
nevertheless  "  must  be  older  than  circ.  850—800  B.C."  (p.  162). 

"Without  dwelling  on  the  false  hiatus  or  the  false  F  in  Fo uXof,  in  6 
and  8  (from  6\),  nXsag  iov  nXiovag  (129),  the  use  of  such  modernisms 
as  Kanviaanv  (399),  such  evident  sacrifice  of  grammar  to  metrical  con- 
venience as  Tr\i]flvi'  d'  ovK  <jv  tyw  fiv>>))(Toi.iai  ouS'  ovoiit^viii  (488,  cf.  Od.  xi. 
328),  or  on  such  jjlain  violations  of  the  digamma  as  iv  hSotiq  l(pi  fidx«ydai 
(720),  the  use  of  oUia  and  ipya  without  the  F  in  750 — 1,  and  uvuKrog 
in  672, — it  is  difficidt  not  to  suspect  "  Keproduction  "  in  the  story  of 
Thersites  (212 — 277).  We  may  concede  that  the  name,  from  Oepaog  = 
Odpoog,  may  indicate  an  Aeolic  original;  but  the  story,  partaking  as 


23 

it  did  of  a  comic  tone,  was  ovidontly  a  popular  and  riithcv  liiickncyod 
one,  and  had  many  diil'erout  aspects.  In  the  Art/iinpis,  Protdus  tolls 
us,  Thersites  was  killed  by  Achilles  himself  in  a  quarrel  about  the 
death  of  Penthesilea.  The  same  is  narrated  in  Q.  Smyrnaeus,  i.  122 — 
774,  and  the  man  is  mentioned,  as  an  impudent  chatterbox,  in  Soph. 
Phil.  442,  where  the  allusion  to  his  being  still  alive  either  ignores  the 
quarrel,  or  takes  the  less  savage  view  with  the  Iliad,  that  the  blow 
given  was  not  a  fatal  one. 

As  it  stands  in  the  Iliad,  the  narrative  cannot  be  genuine.  Not 
only  is  it  rej)lete  with  airaK  ^tyojitva  of  a  very  marked  and  peculiar 
kind,  but  (twox^ukoti  (218)  from  avv'ix'^^  is  a-n  impossible  form, — the 
figment  of  some  ingenious  rhapsodist.  It  is  very  significant,  that  in 
Q.  Smyi'n.  vii.  502,  rdxtoi;  wf  j/^//  auvox'^KOToq  ev  Koviymv,  the  word  is 
assumed  to  be  an  intransive  participle  of  avyxo^'^'^  "  lying  in  a  confused 
heap  in  the  dust."  Perhaps  in  xiv.  517,  awoxi^itaSdv  is  the  true  reading 
for  avi'wxa^ov. 

No  I  The  TliersiU'S  crept  into  our  Book  ii.,  as  did  other  details 
already  enumerated,  from  older  epics  which  we  persist  in  disparaging 
as  "cyclic." 

Popular  and  sensational  stories,  like  the  "wooden  horse,"  des- 
cribed by  the  chorus  in  Eur.  Tro.  520,  the  burning  of  Ilium,  ib.  1260, 
the  descriptions  of  "  shields"  and  their  divine  workmanship,  with  the 
long  lists  of  the  names  of  the  slayers  and  the  slain, — these  "  Homeric  " 
ejjisodes  had  no  fixity  till  they  found  a  place  in  an  authoiised  and 
generally  accepted  written  Iliad.  Who  can  estimate  the  influence  of 
Aristotle  in  this  authorization  P 

I  do  not  think  that  what  is  called  "the  Homeric  controversy," 
once  so  famous,  interests  very  many  persons  at  the  present  day. 
Perhaps  indeed  the  subject  is  pretty  well  worked  out  and  ex- 
hausted. But  as  Professor  Jebb  has  put  forth  a  Manual  on  the 
subject,  reasserting  all  the  doctrines  of  Mr.  Grote,  which  I  regard 
as  pure  assumptions,  incapable  of  proof,  and  for  the  most  part 
improbable  in  tliemselves ;  as  moreover  he  has  either  not  read, 
or  not  duly  considered,  or  at  least,  as  he  has  ignoi-ed  the  ehiborato 
arguments  which  I  have  ]>ublished  from  time  to  time  against  those 
views ;  as  he  docs  not  seem  to  see,  what  I  have  so  clearly  shown,  that 
the  Homer  of  Pericles  could  vot  have  been  the  Homer  of  Plato  and 
AristarchuH  ;  I  have  thought  it  worth  while  once  more,  and  finally,  to 
explain  at  some  lenglli  <]ie  grf)unds  of  my  "late  comjiosition  "  tbeory. 
That    poems  first  definitely  quoted  by  Plato  after  B.C.  400,  should 


234GIK> 


24 

Iiave  existed  fur  at  least  four  centuries  in  the  same  or  nearly  the  same 
form,  uiunixcd  ivitli  the  other  numerous  and  more  popular  epics  wliicli 
we  find  that  Pindar  and  the  tragics  persistently  made  use  of ;  that 
written  copies  of  these  very  long  poems,  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey, 
shoidd  have  been  available  even  in  Solon's  time  and  before  it,  when 
writing,  if  it  existed  at  all,  must  have  been  a  slow,  painful,  and 
laborious  process;  or  that  univritttn  poems  of  such  a  length  could 
have  been  preserved  by  the  conscientious  care  of  the  rhapsodists  in 
their  genuineness  and  integrity,  (supposing  such  men  to  have  had 
"consciences"  at  all) — -all  these  propositions  soein  to  my  mind  so 
extravagantly  improbable,  so  completely  opposed  to  all  the  evidences 
we  possess,  that  in  thus  stating  why  I  cannot  agree  with  my  friend 
the  Professor,  I  must  plead  in  excuse  that,  at  all  events,  lihtruvi 
animam  meam. 

If  the  Iliad  and  the  Odyssey  existed  B.C.  800,  and  a  set  of  imitators 
(in  late  times  classed  as  "Cyclic")  arose  "dating  from  circ.  776, 
presupposing  the  Iliad,  being  planned  to  introduce  or  to  continue 
it"  (Jebb,  p.  134),  we  may  well  ask,  what  possibility  was  there  of 
these  very  early  "imitators,"  in  an  utterly  uncritical  age,  being  kept 
apart?  And  what  probability  is  there  that  long  stories  built 
on  a  single  allusion  to  a  name  (Meuiaon,  Antilochus,  Eurypylus, 
Cycnus,  Telephus,  Protesilaus,  the  Amazons,  &c.) — stories  so  much  re- 
ferred toby  Pindar  and  Q.  SmjTnaeus,  all  came  from  "  the  imitators  ?" 
I  say  there  is  not  the  remotest  probability,  and  this  Prof.  Jebb  must 
himself  know.  I  think  his  passing  over  in  silence  my  arguments  de- 
rived from  Periclean  literature  and  art,  which  demonstrate  that  Pindar 
and  the  Tragics  could  not  have  known  our  Homer,  has  the  look  of  a 
SKpjjressio  veri  in  the  interests  of  a  literary  clique,  and  therefore  s«ems 
disingenuous.  If  it  is  not  that,  it  is  a  short-coming  in  the  knowledge 
of  the  most  recent  Homeric  criticism,  or  else  it  is  a  real  indifference 
or  disregard  for  any  opinions  I  may  have  formed  and  may  hold  on 
this  subject. 


CAMBRIDGE  : 
S.  r.  NATLOR,  TRIKTER  AND  PCBLISHER,  "  CHRONICLE"  OFFICE. 


— ._  I  —  , 


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